


i keep dreaming about snakes.

by TittyAlways



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Depression, Gen, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Psychological Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, find something that works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TittyAlways/pseuds/TittyAlways
Summary: I want a pet snake,you say to lavi, sitting on a swing in an abandoned park at four in the morning, arm curled around the cold chain, phone pressed to your ear.That’s stupid, lavi says, and you agree. You can hardly look after yourself, he says, and you absolutely agree. What are you going to do with a snake?I’m going to make it hate me.





	i keep dreaming about snakes.

**Author's Note:**

> i remembered a dream i used to have.

_I’ve been smoking a lot_ he says, and doesn’t say the rest. Doesn’t say that he rolls cigarette after cigarette until he feels nauseous, that he only goes to bed once the clock has struck thirteen and his lips feel raw and burned. Doesn’t say that he hates it, and that he hates the sour sting when it burns across his tongue, and doesn’t say that he can’t lay down to sleep until his skin feels hot and his stomach is churning, head spinning dizzy with too much nicotine.

There are some things he just doesn’t have to say.

There are some things he just doesn’t have the stomach to say

* * *

You have lunch and coffee with Lena. It’s so sweet and rich and light and nice. It feels nice. It feels nice to talk to her, even when you’re not talking about anything that really matters. It feels nice to forget, for a while, that anything else _does_ matter.

* * *

I keep dreaming of snakes.

How so?

Well, just the one snake.

[Expectant silence, prompting without words]

I’m- in a cage, I think. There’s a- a barrier, around me, I don’t know. It reaches up, all the way up. There’s a snake in there with me. It’s huge, it’s. Long. almost twenty meters long.

Are you afraid of the snake?

[quickly] no. not at all, not. No. It, um. It’s imprisoned too, I guess. Maybe. I don’t know. Every day there’s a plate of food, it’s [laughs] it’s steak and vegetables. Pub food, you know. I always give the steak to the snake, so it can grow, and i sit behind its head while it coils up on itself, as high as it can go. We’re trying to reach the top. We’re trying to get out. But we can never reach high enough, i. I dont know if there really _is_ a top.

What do you think the snake is?

 _A snake._ I don’t know.

What do you think the prison is?

 _A prison._ A prison.

Do you think the snake is, maybe… your friends? Family? People helping you get out of that prison?

 _No._ I suppose.

* * *

Cross is drunk again, and it’s too much. It’s really too much this time. You want to leave. You want to die.

You don’t do either.

* * *

Have you been dreaming of the snake?

 _Every night._ A little.

Has it grown any larger, do you think?

 _Not an inch._ A bit, yeah.

Do you think the two of you might get out of the prison soon?

 _Not at all._ Maybe.

[reminder] im not your friend ~~boy~~ (allen)

Laughs. I dont think we’d make very good friends

Im your therapist. You come here so you have someone to be open with.

Im more open with you than i am with anyone else [this, at least, was true]

Deep sigh i can’t _fix_ you. I cant… wave a wand and make everything go away. Thats not how this works.

 _I know._ I know.

You have to stop lying to me.

 _I know._ What makes you think i’ve been lying?

* * *

You go to the movies with lavi and lena and kanda and link, and when you come home cross is passed out and theres dirty burgundy vomit on the tiles beneath his drooping head, hanging off the edge of the couch. You clean it up because it’s disgusting, and try to tell yourself it’s not something worth dying over.

* * *

What do you dream about?

We’re not here to talk about me

It might help

[calculating silence] i dream about shaking hands with dumbledore

Dumbledore???

I’ve won the house cup

Scathing. seriously?

Oh absolutely. It’s been years since slytherin’s won

Laughs so you’re slytherin, are you?

And you’re gryffindor, I take it?

Hufflepuff, actually

[mild surprise] is that so

My my, mikk. For a therapist, you’re not so great at psychoanalysis

Don’t get lippy, boy

[laughs] ive been coming here every week for months, and i think that’s the most cohesive piece of information i’ve got on you

Considering you shouldn’t have _any,_ let’s keep it that way, hm?

* * *

You smile and agree, and hold on to that little inconsequential gem of information for days, turning it over in your mind like a gift, like something singularly intriguing. It’s ridiculous, and born of a joke, but it’s something. And that’s more than nothing. You think about tyki mikk watching harry potter, and the thought makes you smile. You think about slytherins, and snakes in glass prisons.

You take care of that snake, feed it your steak every day, and in return it tries to complete an impossible task. It tries to get you out. It tries to help you escape from prison walls that go all the way up.

And it never stops trying.

You decide to quit smoking.

* * *

How are you feeling?

[-------]

Allen?

[sigh, head rolled back on the couch, voice quiet because he just didn’t have the energy to fill it with anything. He’d hardly had the energy to come to the office today] i dont know

No?

Tired. [he feels like he’s going to cry. He feels like sobs are going to tug free of his chest at any moment. He feels like he’s falling apart at the seams, unravelling like a pulled thread in a knit sweater] i dont know. I just. [brings a hand up, rubs his fist against his scrunched-closed eyes and hopes the trembling of his lips isn’t too noticable, hopes tyki doesnt hear the way his voice wavers when he says] im just so _tired._

[hears a quiet sigh, the sound of tyki closing his file. Deep voice low and unbearably gentle] do you want to call it a day? You can come back tomorrow if you like

[shakes his head, voice warbling] no. no, i want to stay.

_I don’t want to go home._

I want to sleep, I want to stay.

[quiet, a moment of contemplative silence] there’s a sofa in the breakroom. You can stay, if you like. You can come back tomorrow

[drops his elbows to his knees, face still pressed into his hands, tries to convey bone-deep gratitude with a shaky nod, shoulders trembling with the force of groundless, bottomless distress. Inconsolable, because there was nothing to console. It just _was.]_

* * *

For some reason, you hope to dream about the snake. Curled towards the back of the deep couch as though you were trying to escape the sun and the day and the whole world, you cushion your head on your own elbow so the exhausted tears catch on your sleeve. You don’t want to stain the couch with them.

You wonder how you can sleep there, _if_ you can sleep there. On a couch in your therapist’s breakroom.

But you do, and it’s surprisingly easy.

You don’t dream about the snake, but you wish you did. You don’t know why. You don’t dream about anything, really. Only flickers of muffled colours and sounds and vague movement.

Sleeping on the couch in your therapist’s break room, you wish you would dream of the snake. You know exactly why.

A strange urge, a compulsion coated in filigree panic. He would want to talk once you woke up, and you want to have something to talk about. You don’t have anything to talk about.

You don’t have any words left.

You want to dream of the snake because, absurdly, perhaps then you’d be able to hold it up to him like proof.

 _See?_ you want to say. _I wasn’t lying._

It wasn’t the dreams you’d been lying about, and you both knew it.

* * *

I dreamed of the snake, just before [It might as well have been the truth.]

Oh?

It told me to sleep on the couch in the break room [it said _you can stay here, if you like,_ and allen knew it hadn’t been talking about the prison]

* * *

You remember that look on his face. You remember it for a long time. You remember it when you’re picking over the slapdash meal of overcooked steak and frozen vegetables that cross left for you in the oven, and you remember it when cross stumbles in at three in the morning smelling of perfume and cigarettes and sex.

You remember that look on his face when cross snatches the cigarette from between your fingers and takes a long drag before crushing it out on the armrest of the sofa. You remember the pitying concern that flashed through his eyes when cross’s tongue stumbles through his drunkenness to tell you that you shouldn’t smoke, that you’ll end up just like him, and that’s not what you want, is it?

You remember it like a punch in the gut, like a cold hand curled around your heart when you roll another cigarette and slot it between your lips. When you pocket a lighter and walk out the door with no idea of where to go, already dialing lavi’s number because he’s the only one who’s awake at this time. And good riddance, because he’s the only one who doesn’t ask why you’re calling at such a stupid hour, and doesn’t sound concerned when you explain yourself anyway, when you say you just need to talk to someone for an hour or two about fucking _nothing._

* * *

I’m not your friend, ~~boy~~ ( ~~allen~~ ) boy.

 _I know._ I never said you were.

I’m your therapist.

 _I know._ I know.

The idea is that one day, you won’t need to see me anymore.

 _I know._ Dont flatter yourself, mikk. I hardly want to see you as it is.

[he didn’t say anything to that, even though allen wanted him to. He didn’t say _don’t get lippy, boy,_ and he didn’t say, _i suppose that makes two of us._ He just looked at allen for a long moment, blinked at him with that bland, unaffected expression on his face, and glanced down to write something in allen’s file.]

* * *

 _I want a pet snake,_ you say to lavi, sitting on a swing in an abandoned park at four in the morning, arm curled around the cold chain, phone pressed to your ear. That’s stupid, lavi says, and you agree. You can hardly look after yourself, he says, and you absolutely agree. What are you going to do with a snake?

_I’m going to make it hate me._

You don’t say that, though, because you don’t mean it.

You don’t want a pet snake. Not at all.

One is more than enough.

* * *

How are you feeling today?

 _Like shit._ Like shit.

Why’s that?

[a shrug, stiff and almost surly. Allen drags his fingernails across the weave of the lounge’s upholstery even though the sound grates on his ears.] why’s the sky blue?

[a short silence. Tyki is disappointed in him. Allen can tell even without looking up.] feeling like shit isn’t a constant state of being.

Sure feels like it. [he digs his thumb into the weave, trying to pry a thread loose]

Maybe that’s because you feel like shit. [tyki might not have been an acclaimed doctor of psychology and philosophy, but he did alright. Allen liked his brand of pointed observation more than he did the therapists who had just told him to talk and talk and talk until his throat was hoarse, scribbling away in their notes the whole while.]

Probably.

Would you like me to ask again?

 _Not at all._ Not particularly.

I’m going to anyway.

 _Please don’t._ You really don’t have to.

Why do you think you feel like shit?

[because he’d caught that look in tyki’s eye a week ago, that half-moment flicker of something that didn’t sit well, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking that tyki - _tyki_ , of all people - might pity him]

Allen?

Because i trust you. [well, tyki does want him to stop lying, doesn’t he?] and i think i shouldn’t do that.

[a beat of silence. He’s surprised him.] why do you think that?

Because you’re my therapist. [and how deeply, horribly, tragically counter-intuitive that is.]

[tyki blinks at him. Not surprised, and not pitying. Understanding, in a way. Calculating.]

It’s not that i’ve had bad experiences with therapists. [he has, but that isn’t the point.] i just don’t like trusting people.

Do you trust the snake?

[allen’s lips twist for a brief moment, and he knows tyki caught it. The truth is grudging, and unwilling.] i suppose.

[tyki blinks at him, long and patient and considering.] it’s not my place to pass judgement on these things, and it’s certainly not my place to say something like this, but. [he paused, caught himself. Brown-gold snake eyes flickered away from allen, and then back to him. He didn’t follow up on that. Just let it sit between them in the air, heavy and silent.]

You’re my therapist, mikk. And a good thing, too. [allen’s lips twitch, just a little. Eyes narrow just the slightest bit.] you’d make an awful friend.

Absolutely terrible.

[allen laughs, and he likes that trusting tyki doesnt feel so bad after all.]

* * *

You decide to stop smoking ~~(again)~~.

You don’t want to end up like cross, after all.

* * *

How are you feeling?

Alright.

[tyki blinks, and a small smile comes to sit in the corners of his mouth. He’s pleased.] that’s good.

 _It is, isn’t it._ It’s alright.

Did something happen?

[a small shrug.] _Not really_. I pet a cat.

[he pauses for a moment, surprised. And then he laughs. Allen smiles, because he doesn’t really get to hear tyki laugh much, even though he has a look around his eyes as though he’d like to, or that he does outside of office hours.]

Somehow i’m not surprised to hear that.

It had one black leg and one white leg, and tried to eat the flowers i got from lenalee.

From lenalee?

[a small shrug, a small smile] shes a florist

Is she?

Yeah.

Are the two of you still close?

She’s one of my best friends.

That’s good.

 _It is, isn’t it._ Yeah, it is.

What about kanda and… link, was it?

 _They’re fucking._ They’ve gotten closer.

And lavi?

I talk to him ~~(when I can’t talk to you)~~ a lot

[half a moment’s hesitation, and they both know what he’s going to say.] how are things with cross?

[a small shrug, a small smile. It’s a little bit pained, and a little bit forced and they both know it.] the same.

Have you spoken to your uncle?

No.

That’s good.

 _Is it?_ [allen doesn’t say anything for a beat too long.]

Is it?

[a small shrug, the smile gone.]

Do you want to?

 _Not at all._ Not particularly.

Do you think you should?

 _Not at all._ Maybe. [a long stretch of silence. Allen looks at his hands. Digs his thumbnail at the loose thread in the arm of the chair’s upholstery.] Maybe one day [when he has more good days than bad ones. Maybe then, if neah doesnt try to put fault on allen for overcoming the everything between them in only a matter of years and years and years of depression and unreliable therapists and more bad days than good.] Yeah, maybe. [Maybe then he’ll feel alright enough to work things out with neah.]

No pressure.

 _No pressure on what?_ [allen shrugs, and doesn’t lift his eyes from where he’s working at cutting that thread out from its tightly-woven place with the dull blade of his fingernail.]

There’s no time limit on this.

_This._

And it depends on him too.

_Does it?_

To make things better, he has to be working to make them better too.

He looks like you. _And I think that’s why I almost miss seeing him._ [allen’s fingernails scrape across the weave of the upholstery, and the sound grates sharp and ugly against his ears, sits sour like cold iron at the back of his tongue. He can feel tyki’s blink.]

Do i remind you of him in other ways?

[allen’s laugh is dry and sharp, and hurts his ears just as much as the sensation of having his fingernails drag across coarse canvas] i dont know the next thing about you, mikk. [he looks up, and he knows his eyes are cold and shrewd and a little bit angry.]

[quiet, quiet, and not quite apologetic] that’s true. [not a touch apologetic. Not sorry in the least.] that’s not what i asked, though.

What do you want me to say? [he digs his nail hard into the chair, hard enough to feel the ache of it against the bone.] you’re both proud, and you’re both assholes, and both of you actually give a shit about this, only one of you hates me because his dead brother is my dead father and the other pretends not to because i pay him to let me bitch about how much progress i’m not making every week.

[quiet, quiet, and almost apologetic] that’s not true, boy.

 _It is._ Isn’t it? [seething, fuming, so much anger coiled in his body that he wants to dig his fingers deep under the upholstery of the chair and tear the fabric from the frame.]

Money has nothing to do with it. I don’t hate you.

[quiet, quiet, angry, hurt, teeth grit so tight his jaw is aching because more than anything right now he doesn’t want to cry] shut up. _Shut up shut up shut up._

You couldn’t pay me a dime to give a shit about you, but i do.

[allen is struck. The words sit awkward and uncomfortable, and he’s not sure what he thinks of them. So he smiles a little stiffly and says what he says because it’s familiar, but it’s not _familiar.]_ We’re not friends, Mikk.

[that isn’t what he’d meant, and allen can see it on his face in the way his eyes blink a little wide in surprise. His lips part, and allen thinks he knows what he’s going to say. _That wasn’t what i meant_ and _im your therapist_ and _money has nothing to do with it_ and _but that doesn’t make it something else.]_

[in the end, he doesnt say anything. He just breathes a weary sigh and brushes his hand across his forehead as though he might like to drag his fingers through his neat, pulled-back hair.]

[allen can’t help that it sits like a stone in the pit of his stomach, regardless of what tyki meant.]

* * *

You think you ought to petition the office for a new therapist, and it doesn’t even sound that drastic an idea when you voice it to lavi.

 _I kind of want to petition the office for a new therapist,_ you say, and it sounds very mature and reasonable.

Mikk not doing it for ya, lavi says, and that’s a bit more difficult to answer.

You sigh, and look at your hands because as mature and reasonable as it sounds, it hardly feels rational at all. _I can’t tell if this is fine or if im just being crazy,_ you say, and lavi laughs at that, unrestrained and shameless in his crass amusement.

For a psyche, that’s a one-star yelp review if i ever heard one, he says, and you smile because he’s got a point.

 _He’s a therapist,_ you correct him anyway, _not a psyche._

So what’s the deal, lavi says, and leans back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head.

You rest your cheek in your hand and dig your fingernail into the wicker weave of the chair. _I dont know,_ you say, and it’s kind of true.

Part of you wants to say _he’s not very professional,_ but you know that’s a lie. Part of you wants to say _he’s not a very good therapist,_ and you don’t know if that is an objective lie, but it definitely is a subjective one. _I’m not very professional with him,_ you want to say, and you think that might be the truth of it.

 _I really don’t know,_ you end up saying, because you don’t know how to tell one of your best friends that you’re lonely.

* * *

If you’re no longer comfortable with our sessions, just remember; you’re not obliged to continue them, you can leave at any time, and you can petition the office for a new therapist.

[he smiles his best smile, because he’s glad tyki started the session with that, and he’s happy with the conclusion he came to sometime during the week.] ive been to a lot of therapists, mikk. Dont think youd have the pleasure of my company if i didnt want it.

[he smiles because he’s had a lot of patients, and his methods have never quite resonated with them. He’s not the best, and he might not even be good, but as long as he can be great to one, that’s more than enough.]

* * *

It’s ten at night and you’re running because you don’t know what you’ll do if you stop. You don’t know what’ll happen if you stop. You cant go home, because that’s where all the snarling, vicious animals are. You cant go to lenalee because you’d rather die than see the gentle pain and sorrow and pity on her face. You cant go to lavi or link or kanda because youd rather die youd rather die youd rather DIE than have them see you like this.

You make it to the park, empty but for a couple of junkies waiting for their dealer, and you whip around, directionless. You dont know where to go.

You dont know where you can go.

You catch him from the corner of your eye and your legs go weak with panic, for a moment, and then something like hopelessness, but less hopeless.

You sink to sit on the swing, eyes locked on the silhouette in the window of the house across the road. A house you’ve stared at blankly dozens of times, hundreds, from this exact spot.

Fingers numb, heart fluttering like the beat of a moth’s wings against glass, you call him because you cant believe it. You cant believe it. _You can’t believe it._

Phone pressed sharp against your ear, you watch the silhouette glance down and pull something from his pocket. Who’s calling? a study in profile.

He hesitates, and the phone rings against your ear.

He lifts it to his cheek and the call connects.

 _Hello?_ he says, and you let your hand drop, jab your thumb against the screen of your phone to end the call, and watch his silhouette.

He pulls the phone away from his ear for a moment, brings it back, says something, and then pulls it away again. Brushes his hand against his forehead in a gesture of perplexed stress that you have seen a dozen times.

Not quite feeling anything in your liquid body, you stand up and cross the empty street.

* * *

[the moment he opens the door, you both know you’ve made a mistake.]

You cant be here. [that’s the first thing he says, and it’s an inalienable truth.]

 _I know._ I know.

I could lose my job.

 _I know._ I know.

I don’t exist for you outside of your sessions, okay?

 _I know._ [a numb nod, because you dont want to sound like you’re not listening]

You don’t exist for me once i knock off.

I know. [your voice is weak, and brittle as glass]

[he heaves a sharp, bitter sigh, and you’re sorry you’ve put him in this position.] you need to leave.

 _I know._ [but you stand there on his doorstep, staring at your feet, unable to make them move.]

[his voice is gentle, and a little bit pained.] you have to go. i’m not your friend, boy.

I don’t need a friend. [you have friends. You have friends, and they _do_ exist outside of you. You have friends, and they have lives, and you can’t afford to make them hate you. So you stand there on the front doorstep of the man who begins and ends with the hour you spend together each week, because you don’t need him to be your friend.] ill pay overtime, if you want.

[he doesn’t have to hesitate to drag his fingers through his hair when its already sitting tousled and messy around his face. His glare is truly something remarkable.] don’t make this worse for me, boy.

[you are responsible for this. You are responsible for your actions, and your presence, and this man’s career.]

 _[What are you going to do with a snake_ , you remember lavi saying. _you can hardly look after yourself.]_

Do you have anywhere else to go?

[you shake your head, pinch your tongue between the sharp points of your molars. It hurts, and that’s fair. You’d rather die than see any of the people who exist outside of your time together, and to have them see you.]

[another sharp, considering silence, a knuckle tapping quick, even succession on the doorframe.] wait here. Dont come in, don’t move, dont speak. Just. [he glances down, digs his phone from his pocket and turns on his heel to pace anxiously deeper into the house, already dialing someone.] let me see what i can do.

[you wait, and you don’t go in. you don’t move. You don’t speak.]

Hey- yeah i know it’s late, shut up. I’ve got a patient here, he- no, i don’t know. Why would i give him my address? No i didn’t say anything, i told him to leave. Yeah he’s still here. Look is there some way we can record it as a session or something, make a log? [a long stretch of silence, and a scathingly muttered comment you don’t quite catch, but certainly catch the meaning of] dont [...] find him face down in the river.

[you curl your fingers around the railing at your back, tethering yourself there while your feet desperately beg to move, to leave, to sign it off as something as stupid as trying to see kanda at a time like this.]

Okay. [louder, calmer, closer.] okay thanks, yes. Record, log and report, and all your slimy paperwork for next week. Where do you think you’re going?

[you stop, for some absurd reason guilty, and glance at him over your shoulder. You shrug, one foot on the last step and the other on the pavement, hand curled too tight around the railing. You really have no idea where you’re going.]

[he sighs, and it sounds exasperated and amused] come on. promised road an arm and a leg to make this work; dont be thankless.

Sorry. [you’re not sure why you say that. He asked for thanks, not apology. He holds the door open and you want to thank him, but you havent quite decided if you should.]

Considering this is a… session, essentially, i’m going to have to record it like we do at the office. Is that fine?

[you nod. You dont really care. You hesitate to step past him, and he lets you take your time. You fixate on a stain at the hem of his shirt, flicker a glance up at his messy hair, and realise you don’t know this man at all. You don’t know him from his neat button-ups and sleek shoes, from his elegant brown hands that tap a pen against the top of his clipboard and the way he pins his hair back neat every day.]

You look different. [you’re not quite sure what you expected. you step past him and hesitate in the hallway.]

Lounge room’s on the left. [he brushes past you, into what you suppose is the kitchen, and comes out with a cup of instant noodles in his hand before disappearing into another room.]

[you’re not sure what you expected. You take the door on the left. The lounge room is neat, and there is paperwork scattered everywhere. You sit on the edge of the sofa and run one of your thumbnails beneath the other.]

Sorry for the mess. [he doesn’t really sound all that sorry, but you don’t mind.] it’s always like this. Now [he places his phone on top of all the papers in the center of the coffee table, and you can see that its recording.] what’s going on?

[you dont know where to start. You dont know what to say. You look at your fingers.]

Allen? [you look at his hands because you’re used to seeing your file resting in them. There’s just a steaming cup of instant noodles hanging from between his fingers. You’re surprised, for a moment, and you don’t really know why.]

 _You know my name._ [you don’t say it, because it’s a stupid thing to say, and of course he knows your name because he’s your therapist and he has access to every file on your mental health record and you’ve been seeing each other every week for months and it doesn’t happen often but it’s not as though he never says your name at all.]

[but hes not holding a file with your name printed across the top this time. He’s holding maggi beef instant cup noodles, and you think that says a lot about him.]

[you look at his hands, because they say a lot about him. You dont look at his face, because it says something else entirely.]

I had a dream. [your voice is quiet and you dont know what to do with your hands. Your finger slips, hard and sharp, and blood wells under your nail.] when i gave the snake my food it turned into a cat, and ate me instead.

[he’s silent for a long time, and you’re pretty sure he gets it.] Did you speak to neah?

[you look at the blood under your nail, press your thumb down so it flares and spreads and seeps out from under the edge.] Cross brought him home. [it feels like a betrayal, but you know that isn’t fair. You know you cant make him choose between the only family he has left.]

[Some days you wonder if cross should be the one seeing a therapist, but most days you know that cross isn’t the type to let therapy work.]

[some days you wonder if you’re more like him than you think.]

[tyki blinks, then reaches out to set the noodles on the coffee table in front of you.]

you can stay here tonight, if you like.

[you aren’t quite sure how to thank him, so you press the heels of your hands to your eyes and give a shaky nod, trying desperately to convey a bone-deep gratitude while you’re breathing out unsteadily and trying not to cry.]


End file.
